The WTT Doha Star Challenge is nearing its conclusion, with the Singapore Grand Slam event set to begin soon. As a result, the main participants in this Doha challenge are non-mainstream players from the national table tennis team. However, it must be acknowledged that the strength displayed by these young players has been quite surprising, truly eye-catching.
In this round of five events, our national table tennis players successfully won the men's doubles championship title, with Xiang Peng and Xu Yingbin performing outstandingly, defeating Tomokazu Ishihara and Kakeru Matsumoto. In the women's doubles event, He Zhuojia and Zhong Ge Man unfortunately failed to defeat their opponents, losing to Miharu Igarashi and Sakura Yokoi, ultimately earning the runner-up honor for this challenge.
Today will determine the champions of the women's singles, men's singles, and mixed doubles events.
[Chen Yi vs. Miyuu Kihara]
In the semi-finals, Chen Yi surprisingly defeated Qian Tianyi with a score of 3:0, a result that shocked many fans. It should be noted that when national table tennis players compete, they cannot simply rely on world rankings to judge victory or defeat; the key is to observe the actual strength displayed on the court. After all, they train together every day and are very familiar with each other. Taking Qian Tianyi as an example, her teammates know her inside out. Moreover, Chen Yi stands at 177cm tall, giving her an excellent wingspan that is not inferior even to Wang Manyu, resulting in remarkable defensive capabilities.
During the match, Miyuu Kihara primarily relied on her rubber hitting and connection speed as her points of strength. Compared to Chen Yi, Miyuu Kihara has richer experience in major competitions and often participates in doubles matches. However, to be fair, Miyuu Kihara's state during the match is not always stable, with some ups and downs.
In the first game, Chen Yi fully utilized her height advantage, frequently adding underspin topspin shots, which undoubtedly put great pressure on the Japanese female player Miyuu Kihara. It should be noted that Miyuu Kihara had an impressive performance in previous matches, sweeping South Korean player Yubin Shin with a decisive 3-0 victory, demonstrating her considerable strength. In such a best-of-five format, the outcome of the first game often plays a crucial role, and fortunately, Chen Yi performed well, eventually winning the first game with a score of 11-8, starting off on a good note. Entering the second game, the situation changed. Miyuu Kihara opened up the game with her excellent backhand play. When the score was tied at 5-5, Chen Yi could still hold on to the score, maintaining a competitive stance against her opponent. However, after that, the situation tilted one-sidedly, and Chen Yi's performance in this game declined, ultimately losing the second game with a score of 6-11.
In the third game, Miyuu Kihara successfully carried over her fiery form from the previous game. Whether it was her own service turn or facing Chen Yi's service turn, she exerted significant pressure on the young Chinese player Chen Yi, starting the game with a 3-0 lead. For Chen Yi, if she wanted to change this unfavorable situation, she first needed to steadily withstand her opponent's rallies and then consider how to improve the quality of her returns. It should be noted that when Chen Yi hit the ball to Miyuu Kihara's backhand and the return quality was not high enough, points were usually lost. From the point where the scores reached 7-all, Chen Yi's mentality became slightly anxious, and there were even serving errors, ultimately losing this game with a score of 8-11, allowing Miyuu Kihara to successfully win back a game.
In the fourth game, Chen Yi resolutely chose to go all out and made corresponding adjustments to the serving环节. However, in terms of match experience, she was slightly lacking compared to her opponent, eventually losing this crucial fourth game with a score of 7-11, thus setting the final score at 1-3, allowing Miyuu Kihara to advance smoothly to the finals. However, it should be mentioned that Chen Yi is still very young, only 20 years old, yet she has managed to reach this level in the competition, which is quite remarkable. In this match, Chen Yi's performance in the first half was generally within normal standards, but in the latter half, perhaps due to factors such as the match situation, she did appear somewhat anxious, revealing that she has not yet reached a sufficiently mature stage in terms of experience accumulation and tactical application. But it doesn't matter; as long as she continues to work hard persistently, there will undoubtedly be many more opportunities for her in future competitions.